For their new album the Eagles are
thinking in terms of a departure, of some
experimentation. One idea is to create one side
which works as a whole piece. "Teenage Jail"
and "You're Really High Aren't You?" would be
a part of this suite. "We thought of some things
that could challenge," explained Glenn,
"Y'know, we give ourselves our own challenges
too, like we talk about puttin' together a second
side that's all run together, like the second side
of Abbey Road was; something that just fits real
well, a whole lot of stuff. So that's just
somethin' we suggested for ourselves to do to
make it harder for us." Glenn stares out of the
window reflectively. "Y' know," he begins
slowly, "it isn't hard enough."

I wonder whether the Eagles' songwriting
process has changed or whether that, too, is not
hard enough. Glenn Frey and Don Henley have
always been such perfectionists, hammer and
chisel writers, demanding the highest
standards possible from the other group
members' songs even if it means helping them
or completely reworking the lyrics. Henley
mulls this over, "Well," he says, "we're
spending more time conceptualizing than
actually writing, getting it down on paper.
We'll sit around and think about something for
a year and talk about it over and over again,
round in circles all night, and finally when it
gets down to the deadline time, we'll get
enough guts or whatever to get it out of there.
"I have a microphone in the car, y' know,
and dictate things and keep a legal pad by the
bed in case I wake up in the middle of the
night. Any way you can get it! But Glenn and I
have sessions when we sit down at the table
and get bottles out and the legal pads and sit
there. A lot of people say that's too structured
. . . but I don't think so. I mean, a lot of times
we have a lot of tracks that we cut the music
first and don't have any words at allŚwe have
a title or something. But the music dictates the
words sometimes and it comes out better that
way."

"Because the words always fit the music,"
Glenn interjects. "You write 'em that way."
"And sometimes the words come first," Don
continues, "and sometimes you'll get a little of
it at the same time. There's no set way that it
happens."

"Mirrors on the ceiling
The pink champagne on ice
And she said, 'We are all just prisoners
here,
Of our own device

But their actual writing process has
changed they both admit; it takes longer and
it's harder. "We've said more things." Glenn
allows, "When the word moon comes up, or
dream . . . can't use that anymoreŚcan't say
desert anymore. I've got a cassette player in
the car and every time I get in the car I put the
cassette on, stuff that we're writing, and listen
to it over and over again." "I do a lot of thinking
in the car, too," says Don. "Like I said, we feel
like we have to do better each time."
"We try to grow up a little bit between
every album, get a new sense of values,
y'know, because when we were young and
starting out, it was easy to be an angry young
man at everything. I mean, we were pissed off
at the record business. We were out to get it.
And then we got it. So we have to get a more
mature set of values, I think. And deal with
things that are more important.
"Like Glenn says, we have to get a new
yardstick. We're concerned with things now like
. nuclear power plants, whales and dolphins,
cancer and heart disease and stuff like that,
which you don't think about too much when
you're a teenager."

"Hotel California was a plateau of some
sort," Don and Glenn both realize. "We have a
feeling that one's gonna be hangin' around us
for awhile, y' know," Glenn sighs, "it's gonna
be hard. Hotel California will probably be
harder to shake than Desperado, which we
haven't shaken yet."

"Desperado, Oh you ain't gettin' no
younger,
Your pain and your hunger,
They're drivin' you home.
And freedom, oh, freedom,
Well, that's just some people talkin'
Your prison is walkin' through this world
all alone."(From: "Desperado")